Lyle Lewis
@race2extinct.bsky.social
My book “Racing To Extinction” analyzes the imminent disappearance of humanity through the lens of my 30+ years as an ecologist with federal environmental agencies in the U.S.
https://race2extinct.com
https://race2extinct.com
Pinned
Lyle Lewis
@race2extinct.bsky.social
· Aug 17
Why is humanity headed for disappearance? My book, Racing To Extinction and website race2extinct.com explores our deep-time journey—2.5 million years of evolution leading to the ecological crisis we face today.
A thread on what you’ll find in my work and website 👇
A thread on what you’ll find in my work and website 👇
“Proposals have been put forward.”
In conservation, that’s usually the last step before extinction.
By the time pudus are critically endangered, “proposal” will have become a synonym for obituary.
www.reuters.com/business/env...
In conservation, that’s usually the last step before extinction.
By the time pudus are critically endangered, “proposal” will have become a synonym for obituary.
www.reuters.com/business/env...
Tiny deer in big trouble as Chile's pudus face growing peril
Standing no taller than a house cat, the pudu – the world's smallest deer – is inching closer to endangered status on Chile's southern Chiloe archipelago, threatened by a rising toll of car collisions...
www.reuters.com
November 29, 2025 at 12:53 PM
“Proposals have been put forward.”
In conservation, that’s usually the last step before extinction.
By the time pudus are critically endangered, “proposal” will have become a synonym for obituary.
www.reuters.com/business/env...
In conservation, that’s usually the last step before extinction.
By the time pudus are critically endangered, “proposal” will have become a synonym for obituary.
www.reuters.com/business/env...
The Harappans adapted because they still had water, soil, and space.
We’ve already spent ours. Resilience without resources is mythology.
apple.news/ADvnyB24jThi...
We’ve already spent ours. Resilience without resources is mythology.
apple.news/ADvnyB24jThi...
Scientists may have solved why this ancient, advanced civilization vanished — The Washington Post
Climate data offers clues to what might have happened to people of the Indus River Valley and how that might relate to our own warming world.
apple.news
November 28, 2025 at 4:39 PM
The Harappans adapted because they still had water, soil, and space.
We’ve already spent ours. Resilience without resources is mythology.
apple.news/ADvnyB24jThi...
We’ve already spent ours. Resilience without resources is mythology.
apple.news/ADvnyB24jThi...
Reposted by Lyle Lewis
I almost sprayed coffee out of my mouth at this sentence: "Luckily, the Earth’s sixth mass extinction has one thing going for it that the others didn’t—humans." You're spot on, dear Lyle, re: the only thing we've mastered at scale: self-deception.
November 28, 2025 at 12:28 PM
I almost sprayed coffee out of my mouth at this sentence: "Luckily, the Earth’s sixth mass extinction has one thing going for it that the others didn’t—humans." You're spot on, dear Lyle, re: the only thing we've mastered at scale: self-deception.
The architects of the sixth mass extinction are woefully short on honesty.
We call ourselves “rational actors” as ecosystems collapse around us.
Self-deception may be the only thing we’ve mastered at scale.
apple.news/AaF6VkKwrQay...
We call ourselves “rational actors” as ecosystems collapse around us.
Self-deception may be the only thing we’ve mastered at scale.
apple.news/AaF6VkKwrQay...
The 6th Mass Extinction Is Further Along Than We Thought — Popular Mechanics
It's getting late.
apple.news
November 28, 2025 at 12:13 PM
The architects of the sixth mass extinction are woefully short on honesty.
We call ourselves “rational actors” as ecosystems collapse around us.
Self-deception may be the only thing we’ve mastered at scale.
apple.news/AaF6VkKwrQay...
We call ourselves “rational actors” as ecosystems collapse around us.
Self-deception may be the only thing we’ve mastered at scale.
apple.news/AaF6VkKwrQay...
Clear-cutting the forests that absorb your carbon while trying to purchase a low-carbon future is like bailing water into a leaking boat. It can’t work.
www.seattletimes.com/news/wa-rele...
www.seattletimes.com/news/wa-rele...
WA releases detailed list of projects funded by Climate Commitment Act
A new state report shows how some of the $3 billion raised so far in CCA funds is being used in more than 3,600 projects around the state.
www.seattletimes.com
November 28, 2025 at 1:01 AM
Clear-cutting the forests that absorb your carbon while trying to purchase a low-carbon future is like bailing water into a leaking boat. It can’t work.
www.seattletimes.com/news/wa-rele...
www.seattletimes.com/news/wa-rele...
Irony: Many of America’s greatest conservationists were Republicans:
• John Lacey (Lacey Act, 1900)
• Theodore Roosevelt (National Parks, Forests, & Wildlife Refuges)
• Richard Nixon (Endangered Species Act, 1973)
Modern Republicans are busy dismantling their own legacy.
• John Lacey (Lacey Act, 1900)
• Theodore Roosevelt (National Parks, Forests, & Wildlife Refuges)
• Richard Nixon (Endangered Species Act, 1973)
Modern Republicans are busy dismantling their own legacy.
November 27, 2025 at 12:45 PM
Irony: Many of America’s greatest conservationists were Republicans:
• John Lacey (Lacey Act, 1900)
• Theodore Roosevelt (National Parks, Forests, & Wildlife Refuges)
• Richard Nixon (Endangered Species Act, 1973)
Modern Republicans are busy dismantling their own legacy.
• John Lacey (Lacey Act, 1900)
• Theodore Roosevelt (National Parks, Forests, & Wildlife Refuges)
• Richard Nixon (Endangered Species Act, 1973)
Modern Republicans are busy dismantling their own legacy.
Every time I go into the backcountry, it feels like recalibrating a compass I didn’t know was drifting.
November 27, 2025 at 12:32 PM
Every time I go into the backcountry, it feels like recalibrating a compass I didn’t know was drifting.
Money often masquerades as intelligence.
The climate doesn’t care about wealth—it demands humility, and that’s the one thing the ultra-rich can’t scale.
3dvf.com/en/bill-gate...
The climate doesn’t care about wealth—it demands humility, and that’s the one thing the ultra-rich can’t scale.
3dvf.com/en/bill-gate...
Bill Gates reassures: no, the entire planet will not become uninhabitable - 3DVF
If the planet isn’t doomed, why are so many climate heavyweights seething at Bill Gates right now? On the eve of COP30, his latest memo dares to flip a sacred script.
3dvf.com
November 27, 2025 at 12:41 AM
Money often masquerades as intelligence.
The climate doesn’t care about wealth—it demands humility, and that’s the one thing the ultra-rich can’t scale.
3dvf.com/en/bill-gate...
The climate doesn’t care about wealth—it demands humility, and that’s the one thing the ultra-rich can’t scale.
3dvf.com/en/bill-gate...
Reposted by Lyle Lewis
“Hell Is Here.”
Hundreds of thousands of species are already gone.
Millions more are in the extinction pipeline.
Sophia Pineda Ochoa’s new documentary “Greenwashed” exposes that truth with rare honesty.
youtu.be/XjWUKFUaoL4?...
Hundreds of thousands of species are already gone.
Millions more are in the extinction pipeline.
Sophia Pineda Ochoa’s new documentary “Greenwashed” exposes that truth with rare honesty.
youtu.be/XjWUKFUaoL4?...
GREENWASHED | Full Documentary [Official]
YouTube video by Dr. Sofia Pineda Ochoa
youtu.be
November 26, 2025 at 5:00 AM
“Hell Is Here.”
Hundreds of thousands of species are already gone.
Millions more are in the extinction pipeline.
Sophia Pineda Ochoa’s new documentary “Greenwashed” exposes that truth with rare honesty.
youtu.be/XjWUKFUaoL4?...
Hundreds of thousands of species are already gone.
Millions more are in the extinction pipeline.
Sophia Pineda Ochoa’s new documentary “Greenwashed” exposes that truth with rare honesty.
youtu.be/XjWUKFUaoL4?...
Wolves didn’t “fix” Yellowstone because ecosystems aren’t machines. Elk, beavers, bison, drought, trails… everything interacts.
What remains consistent? Human impacts still drown out ecology. Yellowstone exposes the myth of ecosystem resilience.
insideclimatenews.org/news/2211202...
What remains consistent? Human impacts still drown out ecology. Yellowstone exposes the myth of ecosystem resilience.
insideclimatenews.org/news/2211202...
Reintroduced Carnivores’ Impacts on Ecosystems Are Still Coming Into Focus - Inside Climate News
Yellowstone has long been a mecca for scientists studying how predators affect everything from elk grazing to vegetation height. They are still debating how to make sense of what they’ve learned.
insideclimatenews.org
November 26, 2025 at 12:59 PM
Wolves didn’t “fix” Yellowstone because ecosystems aren’t machines. Elk, beavers, bison, drought, trails… everything interacts.
What remains consistent? Human impacts still drown out ecology. Yellowstone exposes the myth of ecosystem resilience.
insideclimatenews.org/news/2211202...
What remains consistent? Human impacts still drown out ecology. Yellowstone exposes the myth of ecosystem resilience.
insideclimatenews.org/news/2211202...
“Hell Is Here.”
Hundreds of thousands of species are already gone.
Millions more are in the extinction pipeline.
Sophia Pineda Ochoa’s new documentary “Greenwashed” exposes that truth with rare honesty.
youtu.be/XjWUKFUaoL4?...
Hundreds of thousands of species are already gone.
Millions more are in the extinction pipeline.
Sophia Pineda Ochoa’s new documentary “Greenwashed” exposes that truth with rare honesty.
youtu.be/XjWUKFUaoL4?...
GREENWASHED | Full Documentary [Official]
YouTube video by Dr. Sofia Pineda Ochoa
youtu.be
November 26, 2025 at 5:00 AM
“Hell Is Here.”
Hundreds of thousands of species are already gone.
Millions more are in the extinction pipeline.
Sophia Pineda Ochoa’s new documentary “Greenwashed” exposes that truth with rare honesty.
youtu.be/XjWUKFUaoL4?...
Hundreds of thousands of species are already gone.
Millions more are in the extinction pipeline.
Sophia Pineda Ochoa’s new documentary “Greenwashed” exposes that truth with rare honesty.
youtu.be/XjWUKFUaoL4?...
This is increasingly common.
Coal ash, nuclear waste, industrial toxins… all sitting in “temporary” sites engineers swear are safe.
But time, technology, & luck always run out. Ohio isn’t the exception. It’s the rule.
www.wcpo.com/news/local-n...
Coal ash, nuclear waste, industrial toxins… all sitting in “temporary” sites engineers swear are safe.
But time, technology, & luck always run out. Ohio isn’t the exception. It’s the rule.
www.wcpo.com/news/local-n...
'Should scare the hell out of everybody'| Concerns about former Beckjord coal plant reach Gov. DeWine's office
Officials are worried about drinking water safety and the lack of emergency readiness at the former Walter C. Beckjord power plant, where billions of tons of leftover coal ash sit on the Ohio River.
www.wcpo.com
November 26, 2025 at 12:09 AM
This is increasingly common.
Coal ash, nuclear waste, industrial toxins… all sitting in “temporary” sites engineers swear are safe.
But time, technology, & luck always run out. Ohio isn’t the exception. It’s the rule.
www.wcpo.com/news/local-n...
Coal ash, nuclear waste, industrial toxins… all sitting in “temporary” sites engineers swear are safe.
But time, technology, & luck always run out. Ohio isn’t the exception. It’s the rule.
www.wcpo.com/news/local-n...
Reposted by Lyle Lewis
Now here is a great idea: Instead of Black Friday consumption, "let’s mark the post-Thanksgiving date as Extinction Friday" ~ don't consume, as an act of recognition of the impacts consumption has on the world and all beings on it. therevelator.org/extinction-f...
Let’s Rename the Day After Thanksgiving ‘Extinction Friday’ • The Revelator
The annual Black Friday ode to overconsumption sits at the core of our destruction of Earth’s ecosystems. We can flip the script.
therevelator.org
November 20, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Now here is a great idea: Instead of Black Friday consumption, "let’s mark the post-Thanksgiving date as Extinction Friday" ~ don't consume, as an act of recognition of the impacts consumption has on the world and all beings on it. therevelator.org/extinction-f...
Gee! Who could have seen this coming?
A water crisis in a rapidly warming, overpopulated, overdrawn, mismanaged region?
Completely out of the blue! 🙄
www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11...
A water crisis in a rapidly warming, overpopulated, overdrawn, mismanaged region?
Completely out of the blue! 🙄
www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11...
As the dams feeding Tehran run dry, Iran struggles with a dire water crisis
Iran spends 90 percent of its water on low-yield agriculture in a pursuit of self-sufficiency that exacerbates drought.
www.aljazeera.com
November 25, 2025 at 12:56 PM
Gee! Who could have seen this coming?
A water crisis in a rapidly warming, overpopulated, overdrawn, mismanaged region?
Completely out of the blue! 🙄
www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11...
A water crisis in a rapidly warming, overpopulated, overdrawn, mismanaged region?
Completely out of the blue! 🙄
www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11...
A Permian “buildout” is a biodiversity collapse plan — more rigs, more pipelines, and less habitat for dunes sagebrush lizard, lesser prairie-chicken, and Texas hornshell mussel. And more contamination of aquifers already polluted by decades of extraction.
finance.yahoo.com/news/permian...
finance.yahoo.com/news/permian...
Permian Gas Wave Sparks Biggest Pipeline Buildout Since the Shale Boom
Surging demand from LNG exporters, data centers, and manufacturing is driving a $50 billion investment boom.
finance.yahoo.com
November 25, 2025 at 12:59 AM
A Permian “buildout” is a biodiversity collapse plan — more rigs, more pipelines, and less habitat for dunes sagebrush lizard, lesser prairie-chicken, and Texas hornshell mussel. And more contamination of aquifers already polluted by decades of extraction.
finance.yahoo.com/news/permian...
finance.yahoo.com/news/permian...
Reposted by Lyle Lewis
“Behind the numbers lies the same fear that drives the agency’s restraint: the terror of appearing ineffective. In a political culture that rewards optimism and punishes honesty, extinction has become an embarrassment to be avoided, not a truth to be faced.”
The Endangered Species Act lets us measure our virtue even as the world empties around us.
This is an excerpt from a larger piece about what protection means….and what it fails to capture.
open.substack.com/pub/lylel/p/...
This is an excerpt from a larger piece about what protection means….and what it fails to capture.
open.substack.com/pub/lylel/p/...
November 24, 2025 at 8:19 PM
“Behind the numbers lies the same fear that drives the agency’s restraint: the terror of appearing ineffective. In a political culture that rewards optimism and punishes honesty, extinction has become an embarrassment to be avoided, not a truth to be faced.”
Reposted by Lyle Lewis
This is the hidden genius of bureaucratic optimism — it converts loss into evidence of success.
A species on permanent life support still counts as "recovered" if its managed population meets… a numerical threshold." - by @race2extinct.bsky.social
2•2
#Collapse
A species on permanent life support still counts as "recovered" if its managed population meets… a numerical threshold." - by @race2extinct.bsky.social
2•2
#Collapse
The Moral Comfort of Numbers
How the Endangered Species Act turned survival into a statistic—and why our faith in numbers may be blinding us to loss.
open.substack.com
November 24, 2025 at 4:34 PM
This is the hidden genius of bureaucratic optimism — it converts loss into evidence of success.
A species on permanent life support still counts as "recovered" if its managed population meets… a numerical threshold." - by @race2extinct.bsky.social
2•2
#Collapse
A species on permanent life support still counts as "recovered" if its managed population meets… a numerical threshold." - by @race2extinct.bsky.social
2•2
#Collapse
There’s a ‘staggering disconnect’ between racing to see natural wonders before they vanish and ignoring the damage we cause by racing to see them.
Glacier NP is a mirror. We overwhelm what we love… and annihilate what we don’t.
apple.news/AHnqFdP3zRc-...
Glacier NP is a mirror. We overwhelm what we love… and annihilate what we don’t.
apple.news/AHnqFdP3zRc-...
Travelers are being warned not to visit this popular US site in 2026 — The Independent
The spot is congested, garbarge accumulates fast and wildlife there is being disturbed, according to one group
apple.news
November 24, 2025 at 12:19 PM
There’s a ‘staggering disconnect’ between racing to see natural wonders before they vanish and ignoring the damage we cause by racing to see them.
Glacier NP is a mirror. We overwhelm what we love… and annihilate what we don’t.
apple.news/AHnqFdP3zRc-...
Glacier NP is a mirror. We overwhelm what we love… and annihilate what we don’t.
apple.news/AHnqFdP3zRc-...
Reposted by Lyle Lewis
"What we’ve built in the name of conservation is not a refuge but a mirror—an architecture of reassurance. The Endangered Species Act, the IUCN Red List, ... all reflect our need to see progress, not life. They allow us to measure our virtue even as the world empties around us."
The Endangered Species Act lets us measure our virtue even as the world empties around us.
This is an excerpt from a larger piece about what protection means….and what it fails to capture.
open.substack.com/pub/lylel/p/...
This is an excerpt from a larger piece about what protection means….and what it fails to capture.
open.substack.com/pub/lylel/p/...
November 24, 2025 at 1:36 AM
"What we’ve built in the name of conservation is not a refuge but a mirror—an architecture of reassurance. The Endangered Species Act, the IUCN Red List, ... all reflect our need to see progress, not life. They allow us to measure our virtue even as the world empties around us."
Fifteen days in the wild, and this truth feels sharper than ever:
We are drying up the fountains of life….forgetting they’re what quench both body and soul.
We are drying up the fountains of life….forgetting they’re what quench both body and soul.
November 23, 2025 at 8:22 PM
Fifteen days in the wild, and this truth feels sharper than ever:
We are drying up the fountains of life….forgetting they’re what quench both body and soul.
We are drying up the fountains of life….forgetting they’re what quench both body and soul.
Reposted by Lyle Lewis
I was doing wildlife monitoring. Making sure it's empirical. Sadly we use numbers for stories of hope "not extinct yet", not as senses of reality. I quit. Lyle summarizes my own feelings better than I could: "way to declare the patient stable while ignoring that the heart no longer beats on its own"
November 23, 2025 at 3:18 PM
I was doing wildlife monitoring. Making sure it's empirical. Sadly we use numbers for stories of hope "not extinct yet", not as senses of reality. I quit. Lyle summarizes my own feelings better than I could: "way to declare the patient stable while ignoring that the heart no longer beats on its own"
Reposted by Lyle Lewis
"This transformation of extinction into administration mirrors the larger logic of modern life. We don’t end destruction; we regulate it."
The Endangered Species Act lets us measure our virtue even as the world empties around us.
This is an excerpt from a larger piece about what protection means….and what it fails to capture.
open.substack.com/pub/lylel/p/...
This is an excerpt from a larger piece about what protection means….and what it fails to capture.
open.substack.com/pub/lylel/p/...
November 23, 2025 at 2:10 PM
"This transformation of extinction into administration mirrors the larger logic of modern life. We don’t end destruction; we regulate it."
Reposted by Lyle Lewis
November 23, 2025 at 2:25 PM
The Endangered Species Act lets us measure our virtue even as the world empties around us.
This is an excerpt from a larger piece about what protection means….and what it fails to capture.
open.substack.com/pub/lylel/p/...
This is an excerpt from a larger piece about what protection means….and what it fails to capture.
open.substack.com/pub/lylel/p/...
November 23, 2025 at 12:49 PM
The Endangered Species Act lets us measure our virtue even as the world empties around us.
This is an excerpt from a larger piece about what protection means….and what it fails to capture.
open.substack.com/pub/lylel/p/...
This is an excerpt from a larger piece about what protection means….and what it fails to capture.
open.substack.com/pub/lylel/p/...